Credit Unions: Conspicuous Complicity?

Lighting it up...!

WELL!  As they say, quite a few CU marketeers got "their boxers in a wad" over the Filene's marketing post yesterday! [link]   

The "incoming twittery" was just more of the same old stuff ("SOS")....  A few flashes of madness and originality would have been much more interesting.  

If you aspire to be a thoughtful and effective CU marketeer, it might be wise and necessary for you to spend some time with Thorstein Veblen and his work "The Theory of the Leisure Class".  Believe it or not; despite being an economist, Veblen's fun! ("The most impressive satirist of his day." -- Time Magazine)  

Perhaps you need to read Veblen simply because you would like to consider where your moral compass should point, as a cooperative, non-profit leader in a for-profit, take no prisoners, "buyer beware" world. Veblen, the economist who created the phrase "conspicuous consumption", will not only make you think; he may help you choose: for-profit or not-for-profit, truth or whatever, sinner or saint?

Mr. Veblen challenges you to consider the hard-edged realities of an

"WE-aSELL" !!

impersonal, industrialized economy, juiced-up by advertising and consumption... with AI waiting in the wings! 

But even back in 1899, Thorstein Veblen was not optimistic about the logical "endgame" of a race to the bottom in a marketplace, increasingly unrestrained by local accountability, with uncertain ethical values, and flexible moral scruples.  

Veblen predicted that marketing would eventually feature the following:

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

OF MODERN MARKETING? 

(Future predictions from 1899!) 

• Attention to overstatement
• Fabricated demand
• A low traffic in salesmanship
• Promises much, delivers the minimum
• Promises much, delivers nothing of value
• Creates an artificial scarcity
• Enlarges the list of life's "necessities"
• Downplays the truth, implies the false
• Encourages contemptuous consumption
• Promises a margin of something for nothing

✔ "Veblen saw greed as the overriding motive in the modern economy, and  examined the human cost paid when social institutions exploit it for the sake of personal profit." 

 

Are we there yet CU marketeers?

 

The Credit Union Movement Closeout Sale?

  "You're doing what?!"

Been having several Edward Filene Moments over the last few days as the discussion gains heat on monkeyshine mergers and the rise of the "me/me/me" credit union.  Everyone associated with credit unions knows that Mr. Filene was the principal benefactor and key driving force behind the creation of the credit union movement in the U.S.

What many forget is that Mr. Filene was also a truly world class innovator  in "merchandize -zing" - the Steve Jobs-like retailing sensation of his era. His flagship store was Filene's in Boston and his "guy in a garage", retailing innovation-incubator was the famous Filene's Basement.

Edward Filene was a creative genius with an entrepreneurial spirit, who  introduced many of the core sales and marketing techniques still used today. As a marketeer extraordinaire, Filene invented concepts like  "fixed price/same price for all" , "XX% OFF" discounts, "two-fers", BOGO's, closeout sales, and the lay-away plan.  The store also bought seasonal "close-outs" from high-end retailers and resold them for a fraction of the sticker price. Fashionistas scoured 'the Basement' for great values, and there were lots of them.   

 

The store was most notorious for its annual wedding gown sale, which featured the same high-end apparel, and came to be known as "the Annual Running of the Brides"; because of the large crowds that would form at the door, and the mad dash that would take place toward the racks, when the doors swung open. Filene knew how to create sales excitement and shopping frenzies in the department store space!  
  

Part of Mr. Filene's great interest in the credit union movement was to help create a source of credit for working men and women, so that they could purchase some of the "small luxuries" in life "on installments." Fair and reasonably priced credit gave workers greater purchasing power... at places like Filene's Basement!   Filene most certainly understood his business, but more importantly he understood human nature, which made his fortune!

 

In 1928 Filene was ousted from store management by his fellow stockholders who were "troubled by his liberal management policies" ["like same price for all"]. Edward Filene was not "industry standard"!  He died in 1937 and President Roosevelt had this (and more!) to say about him:

 

"Mr. Filene was more than a champion of popular rights. He was a prophet who perceived the true meaning of these changing times. He was able to make plain to us that our modern mechanism of abundance cannot be kept in operation unless the masses of our people are enabled to live abundantly. His democracy was more than a tradition. He did not repudiate the past, after the fashion of some reformers, nor did he repudiate the future after the fashion of those who fear reform. He believed in learning and searching out the ways of human progress." 

 

The store, on the other hand, became a victim of its initial success. Ultimately, Filene's was milked and me/me/me'd into oblivion by profiteers who "rebranded" Filene's from something quite different...  into something which made no difference at all. 

 

No presidential eulogy has been found praising their efforts...   

A business no longer works, if it no longer really matters.